


Memories of Venus

by pearypie



Category: Twilight (Movies), Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: A Touch of Affection, Character Study, F/M, Opaque Emotions, Past Memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:14:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27224080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearypie/pseuds/pearypie
Summary: "Oh I knew it." She smiles viciously. "You were always too much of a romantic. Austen herself couldn't have written a better sop than you."
Relationships: Edward Cullen/Rosalie Hale
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	Memories of Venus

Somehow, Bella finds herself behind the white Corinthian column of their new London home, its architecture supervised by Rosalie. Emmett had jauntily informed her that in 1966 Rosalie had graduated with a degree in classic architecture from Columbia University and since then, she'd designed most of their homes with expert ease and dignified elegance.

Standing there, one hand pressed against the cool white marble, Bella listens to the strange rapport of two voices, an odd articulation of solemn unity that she'd never heard, not once, from the most enigmatic members of the Cullen household.

Rosalie had always been unreachable, even after Nessie's birth.

There is a distance about Rosalie that reminds Bella of twilight stars, shining brighter than all the rest—but cold. And so very far away. Fit only to be admired and looked upon, its true history lost to the joint admiration of men's gazes and women's envy.

Behind the pillar, Bella knows she needs no breath—can stand in perfect stillness—but it is still a surprise they have not caught her presence by now.

"It seems to me, vain Aphrodite, you've become more humble as the years wear on." Edward's voice, while not quite warm, is tinged with a playful edge that Bella is stunned by.

She has rarely heard him direct such a tone towards _anyone_ and cannot imagine that Rosalie, arguably the most antagonistic towards Edward and certainly towards Bella, might be the recipient of such quiet mirth.

( _But then again_ , some distant corner of her mind thinks, _how long have you truly known them?_ A handful of decades, not yet half a century. To them, barely a few weeks.)

Bella hears a rustling, knows Rosalie has put down whatever novel she's been reading to glance at Edward sitting directly across from her. "Vain Aphrodite?" She repeats. "A compliment at long last."

"Hardly." There is amusement in his voice, as rare as the Jovian eclipse.

"Well, well. At long last we've reached an accord where courtesy can mask your spite and my indifference."

"You're never indifferent to compliments, Rosalie. You preen like a peacock each and every time."

"Modesty is one of the few looks that's never suited me." She sighs, one hand coming to brush away a pale gold curl that's fallen past her left shoulder.

Her hair. It was one of the few things untouched by the sharpness of the venom—still the same color as the harvest moon, gentle and soft. He remembers how it looked, piled atop her head with jeweled hairpins one evening in 1932. He'd never cared much for her then—could admit to her beauty but only as far as one might admit the sky was blue. A simple, indisputable truth that he took note of as one might the weather. But in that infinitesimal moment, when the evening sky was dark and gold rippled from the chandelier lights of an incandescent ballroom, Edward could admire, however reluctantly, the unfiltered beauty of starlight captured within the strands of Rosalie Hale's hair.

He'd never imagined her to be anything more or less than a gilded memory—as lovely as the first glimpse of Selous's _Venus_ ; certainly, he never imagined her his sister.

Before him, Rosalie arches a brow in the same haughty manner that the late and great Vivien Leigh would incorporate into her interpretation of Miss Scarlett O'Hara.

Edward fights the smirk that's tugging the corner of his mouth. Instead, he turns to the fire place, eyes fixed on the pulsating flames. "You've always been shallow." He concedes. "But honest. If nothing else, I've admired you for that."

"You admired me for _that_?" She rolls her eyes, piercing gold, and he remembers a time when they were as violet as children's poems—and bright too, full of mischief and expectation. Now they turn with ill-humor, less playful and more caviling. "You really are a martyr looking for a cause aren't you?" She provokes him like none other but Edward could be cruel as well. Sharp-tongued and cavalier when he wished.

This is a repartee they've played and replayed one too many times but still, Edward cannot stay away from his sister's wit for long.

"The cult of Rosalie." He muses. Firelight dances, softening the sharp edge of Edward's features until, at last, humanity radiates. "It wouldn't have lasted. You've always preferred isolation to exhibition." He pauses. "Unless it was for the benefit of vanity, you would've made a poor Charles Manson."

She scoffs. "You really do make me out to be an insipid little fool."

"But never with me." Something in his tone changes. "Not even then."

"I was the only creature alive prettier than you." There is a cool confidence in her voice, belied only by the faint smirk on her painted lips.

He does not move, almost accusatory in his forced repose. "You never sought my favor."

She shrugs. "You never appeared at a party long enough for me to approach you."

Edward knows such a thing would not have stopped Rosalie. For all her faults, she possesses an amazing willpower that, through myth and mythos, could bend the whole of the world to her liking.

And Edward, had she tried, might not have been the exception.

He says as much out loud.

She laughs. A harsh, surprised sound that ruins, ever so briefly, the nostalgic beauty recreated by firelight and memory.

"Oh I _knew_ it." She smiles viciously. "You were always too much of a romantic. Austen herself couldn't have written a better sop than you." Her brow arches in pleased triumph. "You've always been enamored by things out of your reach, Edward. Had I approached you—spoken to you, or even looked your way…that spell would have been broken and you would've dismissed me as you'd dismissed every debutante in Rochester and god knows where else."

His eyes darken. "Such a low opinion of your own charm?" There is little humor in his voice now.

"No. Just greater knowledge of your character, Titus Andronicus." She returns to her book, still resting in her perfumed lap, the very image of tranquil indifference and Edward hates her, just for a moment. Rosalie continues. "To possess beauty is a wretched thing." She sighs, the first sign of aggravation slipping through her carefully coifed veneer. "You grow used to it—sick of it even. It becomes monotonous when there's nothing left to chase." Eyes peer up from the edge of her tome. "It's why you're with _her_ after all."

He straightens. "You mean Bella."

Rosalie makes a noncommittal sound of agreement. "Unlike the rest," her eyes skim down to the bottom page, lingering there for a moment, "her mind is untouched."

"That's—"

"You can never truly have her, Edward. And that is why you will stay with her." Another page turns. "A pity and a triumph, wouldn't you say?"

"A little too tragic for my taste."

She laughs. "Lovely thing, isn't it?"

* * *

Decades ago, when they'd first met and he'd been lovestruck and stupid, he'd written a brief note—barely coherent—imaging a wedding. A wedding to her. Lavish and grand because it would be what Rosalie craved. Fine silks, champagne all around, crystal chandeliers and Carlisle walking her down the aisle.

Even as illusions faded and she grew ever more distant, Edward kept those few precious pages, slipped them between journals of bound leather with hand-stitched spines. He knows exactly where those volumes are, in his bedroom library, beside the mantlepiece clock.

She would laugh if she ever found out. Would call him asinine and weak, too softhearted for what they are. Even in his blackest moods and on his foulest days, Rosalie never feared him. She would corner him, flippant and sharp, elegant in manner and clever in form. And he would concede, each and every time, to the honesty of her humor and the exasperation of her unflinching self. Rosalie, for all her faults, recognized the false nobility of penance. Said there was nothing productive about kneeling in the middle of a crowded street, begging to be purged of past sins because what was the point of moving on if you refused to get off your knees?

It was decades ago, before Emmett and Alice, before Jasper, and before Bella—there was Rosalie. The vain, spoilt beauty who was so untouchable in her surety of the world that he fell to _this_ —

To whatever gravity that holds him in her orbit. Intertwined, together. In 1934, he had loved her. There can be no remedy for such a long-concealed truth.

In 1934, when she had not been so hard nor he so cruel, Edward had loved her. In the quiet recess of his mind, he hoped she might take his hand and draw him near, this tempest and goddess and unholy mix of divinity and retribution.

In 1934, for however brief a time, she had been his.

* * *

Behind the pillar, Bella hears Edward draw breath and waits for the confrontation, the inevitable fallout.

Instead, she listens to him rise, hears the shuffling of footsteps and paper followed by the gentle amusement of a fond rebuke.

Rosalie is dismissive, barely bothers with a reply, but as Bella careens closer, eyes turning to the fireplace and den, she sees Edward's gaze fall on Rosalie with an expression that is all at once strange and familiar. He looks fond, but pensive—like how one might remember a half-forgotten dream, so far and distant—but pure.

The purest truth to ever be expressed.

**Author's Note:**

> \- "Selous's Venus" refers to the 1852 painting 'The Birth of Venus' by Henry Courtney Selous.


End file.
